August Nomination: Wespac Construction and McDowell Mountain Music Festival

Sometimes rock and roll gets a bad rap. It’s loud, it’s unruly, it’s often delivered with reckless abandon and howls of passion. The leather pants alone have incited panic and rioting in cities around the globe. But once in a while we’re reminded that maybe rock and roll isn’t all that bad. Recently it was the job of Wespac Construction’s in-house PR team to tell people just that.

Each year Wespac organizes the McDowell Mountain Music Festival, a weekend-long, non-profit music festival in Scottsdale, AZ. With over a dozen bands, camping, kids activities, and more, it’s the kind of thing people want to know about. But the annual glut of summer events demanded that Wespac’s public relations team be extra creative in getting the media’s attention. So they got out their scissors and glue, made some phone calls, and put together a media kit that was inspired, resourceful, and effective.

The kit’s centerpiece was a wire-bound book whose covers were actually repurposed album covers rescued from thrift stores. Inside, concert ticket stubs, sheet music, and vintage-style artwork adorned the pages and paid homage to the history of rock festivals and the art of live music. And because each record cover had a history of its own, each book had a unique character as well.

The Wespac team also contacted festival partner Fender, who supplied a 1/6 scale replica of their legendary Fender Stratocaster guitar for each of the 100 media kits. Says one member of the PR crew, “With 100% of the proceeds from the McDowell Mountain Music Festival going to local children’s charities, we thought it was fitting to send the kits with a toy representing the kid in all of us!”

And the kit was a chart-buster. It led to unprecedented media coverage reaching millions of people. Over 10,000 concertgoers attended the festival and were duly rocked like a hurricane. And thanks to increased interest, the festival donated $130,000 to its charities—$30,000 more than last year.

If we were allowed to hand out Grammys, we would certainly award one to Wespac for best media kit by a duo or group. Instead, we are pleased to award them with this month’s nomination for an even greater prize: the Oddy. If you think your marketing idea can shake us all night long, let us know at www.theoddy.com.